


How to Atone

by Kurosaki224



Category: Leverage
Genre: Eliot's POV, Experimental Style, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, POV Experimental, Sort Of, an attempt to fill in the gaps in Eliot's past without filling in much of anything at all, might come back and add more later, really minor but better safe than sorry, this was supposed to be way longer but I ran out of steam oops, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:33:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26573008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kurosaki224/pseuds/Kurosaki224
Summary: Life throws a lot of things at you - sometimes those things are okay, but more often they're decidedly not. Everyone wishes there was a book, a manual, a how-to guide to make it from point A to point B.This is that guide.(As told by Eliot Spencer, anyway.)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	How to Atone

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! I'm gonna say right off the bat that I realize this is an odd piece. The style was an experiment on my part, one that I had quite a lot of fun with, despite the challenges it presented! I actually wrote it in response to a prompt for a fiction workshop I had last term, and the main guideline for that prompt was to write a piece entirely in imperatives - like a how-to list. So that is why I chose this writing style.
> 
> And I _had_ to write about Eliot Spencer, because my Eliot Spencer feels are forever too large to contain in my short little body.
> 
> So now, I present to you, Eliot Spencer's life: A How-To.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!

Be born in a small town, maybe one full of small minds but definitely one full of good hearts. They lean on each other, having learned long ago that survival is a group activity. When you learn to read, the papers decry a breaking down of community, how no one knows their neighbors anymore. Decide on the spot that the people writing the news don’t know anything, because you know Mrs. Johnson next door – you help her with her vegetable garden every weekend – and Mr. Frank Abbey up the road comes over to your dad’s hardware store every Wednesday to help him unload the supply truck.

Be able to name just about everyone in town by the time you finish grade school. Most everyone comes to church on Sunday or to the Rabbi’s house on Friday, and you wonder during service once how anyone can see people so often and not know who they are. You decide those people just don’t pay enough attention, and go back to tallying who’s in attendance that week. Haircuts are surprisingly distinctive, even from the back. Sometimes appearances speak louder than words.

Grow up just the right side of dirty, the way that makes you feel clean inside. Wrestle with the other kids in the dirt on the playground, shake up pop cans ‘til they explode all over, learn how to throw a football and only sometimes run into the lake trying to catch one. Always answer “yes ma’am” when someone’s mother tells you to clean up before dinner, and try to follow through occasionally.

You know your neighbors, the friendly and the grumpy ones, and they know you in return. It doesn’t matter if you like each other. They teach you that liking someone and respecting someone are very different things, and that respect goes a lot further between the two. You aren’t sure you understand that until one day a stranger blows through town, full of big smiles and bigger promises. He says he’ll breathe life back into town, create jobs, bring folks together again in a big way. Dad tells you to always keep an eye on people who use words like “big” and “great” too often. He tells you those words are like sugar – they sweeten things up, and make ‘em easier to swallow, but at the end of the day a pile by itself doesn’t make a meal.

The warehouse they open up sure is big.

Watch stores start closing down on either side of dad’s hardware store. Notice as dad starts drinking more and talking less. Watch as main street traffic thins out until no one even bothers to tell you not to play in the street anymore. You’re getting too old for that anyway. Sing in church choir less, learn to enjoy watching football more than playing it. Watch as your friends drop out of high school to work at the warehouse. They have to support their family somehow. Hope it’ll be enough for them. Ignore the voice in your head that says it won’t.

Watch dad lose more money than he makes a couple months in a row. Watch as the dust gathers on the cash register at the store and on the Bible on his bedside table at home. Stand behind him when he closes the door of the shop for the last time, “Sold” sign bright red and gaping like an open wound on the window. Put a hand on his shoulder, and feel something shrivel up and die inside when he shrugs it off and turns away.

Watch.

Watch.

Watch.

The night dad raises his hand against you for the first time is the night you reach your limit.

Enlist the next day. A week later walk away with a duffel over your shoulder and your dad’s anger echoing in your ears. Walk past Mrs. Johnson’s dried up vegetable garden, and Mr. Frank Abbey’s rusted old pickup truck. Feel your dad’s Bible burning a hole in your pocket.

Don’t look back.

You can’t atone without mistakes, so make many. Put your head down in the trenches, and keep going. Make it through boot camp, one tour, then two. Get transferred. Stop counting the tours.

Keep going. Don’t look back.

Realize one day that no one knows which way is up anymore, not even you. Find a couple others who feel the same, and make some mistakes on purpose. Let them lead you somewhere darker, and pretend not to notice. All the shades of grey blend together anyway. Maybe the person trapped inside your memories will finally quiet down in the darkness.

Make the choice that breaks apart what’s left of your soul. Make it for people who have never fixed anything in their life, much less a person. Remember your dad’s hardware store and Mr. Frank Abbey’s rusty old truck that ran like clockwork.

Stop.

Look back.

Realize with that you no longer deserve to hope for light in your darkness.

But others don’t deserve the darkness you’ve been bringing to them.

Take great care extracting yourself from that murky void. The hands of the damned claw at you as you swim back to the surface, back toward the light. It blinds you.

Keep going. Don’t look back.

Bring a mirror to keep an eye on the monsters behind you.

But don’t look back.

Find a hole-in-the-wall apartment in a town you’ve never seen and try to remember how to be a person again. Get up to watch the sunrise. Do it every day. Keep honing your body, but on your time, your way. Do solo jobs for money. Take care of the occasional monster that rears its head in your mirror. Change towns, do it again.

A few towns later, meet an old man that shifts your world on its axis. Quit the job you had and let him teach you to cook. You already know how to use a knife, but learn again. Start to cut and chop your way out of strict isolation. Find a little bit more light creeping into your world each morning than before.

Start to get attached, decide to move again.

Against your better judgement, accept your first team job in years. One that pays ridiculously well, recovering some files that have been stolen, and it’s still a one off. You meet the tech geek the boss hired who looks like he’s barely out of college and who jabbers away all through the setup. The mastermind of the job is mouthy too, and you grind your teeth and snap at both of them as you take your position. Loose lips get people into trouble. And all the talking is distracting you from the job. Another reason you like to work alone.

The last one on the team is just plain crazy. Watch as she leaps off the roof of a building with utter glee, even as you marvel at her skill. No one jumps off a thirty story high rise to steal something and hollers with joy. You decide these kinds of people will get you killed if you’re not careful, and try to hurry the job along.

Use the hacker kid as bait for the guards, ignoring his protests. Then do what you’ve learned to do best – fix the problem, quickly and efficiently. You always were good with your hands.

Watch the kid’s eyes widen with awe as he sees you drop all four guards without a word. Let yourself enjoy the positive recognition. Just for a moment. Then finish the job.

Walk away.

Find yourself right back in the mess a day later when your boss doesn’t pay you. Find yourself back with the crew of misfits when he tries to kill you all. Theft is one thing, murder is another. You take the latter more personally and agree to join forces to get revenge.

Realize that excellent thieves or not, these idiots don’t know the first thing about staying alive when things go sideways. Realize if you want to survive this job then they have to too. Grumble and groan every step of the way, but keep them safe.

Resign yourself to the fact that if you let them go off on their own again they’ll probably get into hot water without you to keep them in line. Slowly agree to one more job, maybe two, to keep them out of trouble. Find out they attract a lot of trouble, but stay anyways, because they get in trouble for all the right reasons. Keep an eye on the monsters in the mirror, but keep it to glances, or else they might see.

Start finding pieces of the team everywhere, flaking off each of them like old paint. Notice the grave of the mastermind’s son at the bottom of all his liquor bottles. Notice the hacker’s ridiculous attachment to things, his names for everything that fills his empty home. Particularly notice the crazy thief’s excitement to touch anything and everything except other people. The distant panic that sometimes clouds her eyes is an all too familiar flavor. You even notice the new actress’ eyes, and how their warm brown turns ever so slightly pained whenever someone says her name.

Finally let the voice in your head speak, and listen to it berate you for getting attached again. Hear it scream at you that you are safer solo, always safer alone. Making mistakes alone is far, far less painful. Acknowledge the truth in those words, feel the temptation to flee.

Argue back anyway. They are good people, you tell yourself. It’s not their fault they’re broken. You can see the light shining through all of their cracks, feel its warmth. You’ve been huddling closer and closer – too close, the voice in your head says – letting their light bring you just a little bit of hope that maybe, just maybe, staying wasn’t another mistake.

Look at all the pieces, and start picking them up one by one. Gather them in your hands and your heart and slowly start smoothing the edges, working out the bends so they don’t turn into breaks, patch up the areas wearing thin with stress. Patch your new family together again, piece by piece. You always were good with your hands.


End file.
